olivia wilde

olivia wilde

FASHIONISTAS: Kelly Rowland, Isaac Mizrahi, and Fern Mallis are making their new reality show green. (Photo: Mitchell Haaseth/Bravo)
Bravo lost Project Runway to Lifetime in a legal battle, but fires back with a fashionista competition of its own this week with the premiere of The Fashion Show, hosted by designer Isaac Mizrahi and former Destiny’s Child diva Kelly Rowland, with 7th Avenue exec Fern Mallis aboard as a judge. One challenge will involve eco-friendly fashion, which, says Mizrahi, “is the foreground of everybody’s mind” in the design world these days. “There are steps being taken both on The Fashion Show and in my work for Liz Claiborne and my Isaac Couture collection. There are other designers who are leaders in that area and I adore and respect them and take my cues from them,” he says.

Recently, he was approached by the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York to create something for an eco-friendly fashion show, “and I looked through a lot of textiles and I learned a lot about it.” But he finds that “there are still a lot of unanswered questions,” offering one example. “Bamboo is supposed to be very eco-friendly and probably is, but there are studies that say that the growth of bamboo is not as friendly to the planet as we thought.”

“There are still a lot of unknowns about the way things are manufactured and the damage that certain plants and chemicals have on the environment,” adds Mallis. “It’s all still very much a frontier in fashion that’s being learned more and more every season.”

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Nicknamed Thirteen on House, which has its season finale May 11 on Fox, Olivia Wilde (pictured right) has found a number of great ways to be kind to the planet. “I try to buy local, organic, seasonal produce. Farmers’ markets are the place to go,” says Wilde, reminding us that flown-in organic fruits do nothing to decrease your carbon footprint. “I drive a Lexus hybrid. I have two big dogs,” she explains why she needs an SUV, and she buys organic food for them too. “With the materials I buy, upholstery or wood, I make sure that it’s sustainable and recyclable. I never buy plastic water bottles. These are simple things all of us can do. It can seem overwhelming and expensive but you don’t have to do everything at once and do a big green overhaul,” she says.

Wilde also swears by organic products for her face and skin. “There’s one I really love called Osea. It’s hand made, vegan, natural, cruelty-free. I went through a lot of very bad chemical-y products and had tough skin for a while when I was living in New York, and then I discovered natural, vegan organic products,” she explains, mentioning Josie Maran’s cosmetics as a favorite line. “I encourage people to replace one thing in their makeup bag with something natural as a first step. We don’t realize some mascara has mercury in it or that a lot of lipstick has lead or that powder has talc. It’s a slow process for everyone but I encourage people to take baby steps.”

Wilde will appear on the big screen next month in the comedy Year One, opposite Jack Black. “I play a princess. I don’t want to give anything away, but it’s a road trip through ancient times,” she describes. She’s also filming a sequel to the 1980s sci-fi flick Tron, due out in 2011.

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“I am trying to do more green things every day,” says Southland star Regina King (pictured left). “I have a Prius,” she begins. “I still have my big truck but I very rarely drive it, maybe twice a month. I don’t use plastic bags. I take my own bags to the grocery store. I buy the energy-saving light bulbs. And I try to refill my silver water bottle, though it’s harder to do when we’re on location. Every day I’m trying to do more. I’m looking into investing in alternative fuel.”

NBC picked up Southland for a second season, which means more police work for King and co-star Ben McKenzie, who, like King, brings reusable bags to the supermarket. For McKenzie, the long days on location and much more of a physical role make this job a far cry from his last series, The O.C.

“We have a terrific stunt coordinator and great people around us to protect us. But there are nicks and scratches. I got a ding on my lip yesterday tackling a ‘suspect’ but nothing too bad. I’m really tired at the end of the day, though,” he says, acknowledging a new appreciation for the police. “On a daily basis they’re confronted with enormous challenges and see a tremendous amount of tragedy. They do an incredible job, day in and day out. That’s what we’re trying to show.”